SYRINGE HANDLE

Abstract: Ergonomically amended handle for a syringe intended for puncture of blood vessel walls and establishing of blood path connections. The syringe consists of a tube body and a needle body. The handle prevents unintended displacements between tube body and needle body and permits placement of thumb and forefinger at the side of the tip of the puncture needle and in the vicinity thereof.

Description: Syringe handle In the medicin there is frequently need for establishing connection between blood wessels (veins and arteries) and injectors or containers of different kinds. The connection must be erected with total sterility. Leakage must be avoided as far as possible. Examples of treatments requiring blood wessel contact erection are blood transfusion inclusive blood giving, blood sampling with the assistance of test containers under negative press on, and intravenous supply of medicm, nourishment or just liquid for blood volume expansion, commonly called drip. In all these applications it is essential that the puncture of wessel wall can be done without damage to surrounding tissues. Failures are even under the best circumstances unpleasant but may cause serious damages as well. A common syringe for insertion in blood wessels of different kinds is shown in figure 1. The syringe consists of a tube body (1) with a channel that continues in a thin plastic tube (3). The rear opening of the tube body is designed with a conical widening for attachment to a syringe or a catheter. The opening is at the beginning filled by the hollow needle (4) which continues with the needle body (5) the rear part of which has a transparent room which gets filled with blood when satisfactory blood wessel contact has been established. Through the channel runs the hollow puncture needle (4) with an at oblique angle sharpened tip, which extends a few millimeters in front of the front end of the thin plastic tube (3). When establishing a blood wessel connection one choseε a suitable superficial blood wessel (vein or artery depending upon type of treatment) and tries to direct the tip of the puncture needle to penetrate the skin just over the chosen blood wessel in such a way that the tip hits the wessel centrally and after penetration of the wessel wall together with the plastic tube may be directed axially obliquely into the blood path. When the above mentioned transparent room behind the needle starts filling with blood the needle body with the belonging puncture needle is kept still while the tube body is advanced forward so that the needle tip no longer is i front of the end of the plastic tube. This is done to prevent the needle tip from hurting the wessel wall when the plastic tube afterwards to the ma n part of its length s brought forward into the blood path with the aid of the tube body. Whe the plastic tube has reached desired position in the blood pat the tube body is fixed to the sk n. The puncture needle, which so far has prevented leakage by its close fit to the inner wal of the plastic tube, is withdrawn together with the needle bod and desired connection to syringe, container or catheter is erected. For reasons of sterility the plastic tube must not be touched before or during the insertion into the blood lumen. The distance from the needle tip to the grip around the needle bod is long. The grip surfaces are not well defined especially as the hands most frequently have to be provided with gloves. The insertion demands a row of complicated changes of direktion. There is no visible indication of the position of the needle tip after the skin penetration. To this is added that the bloo weselε frequently are relatively badly fixed under the skin an are having big tendencies to "roll away". In spite of these from the ergonomic point of wiew very unfavorable circumstances experienced nurses with daily training develop big skill and fail very seldom. The circumstances are different for doctors, nurses, ambulance crews and learners, which more temporarily are put to the task. Failures will cause the patient discomfort and are embarassing to the operator. Besides loss of valuable material will arise. Amendment proposals concerning the ergonomics at the establishing of vein- and artery connections and similiar operations may be found in the German "Offenlegungsschriften" 2306068 and 4244563. The solution of the problem according to the former is applicable to injection needles without surrounding plastic tube only. It is true that the latter mentions the possibility of combination with a plastic tube but the proposed design brings with it big risks of damages because there is no firm connection between needle body and tube body. As will be explained below unintended displacements between those parts bring with them a serious moment of risk. The invention concerns a handle (6) for a syringe consisting of a needle body (5) with a hollow needle (4) of suitable material and a tube body (1) with a thin plastic tube (3) intended for puncture of blood wessel walls and establishing of blood path contact. The handle is designed in such a way that it admits placing the thumb and forefinger at the side of the tip of the needle (4) and in its proximity and prevents unintended displacements between the needle body (5) and the tube body (1) during the puncture phase. In preferred ways of carrying out the invention the grip part (7) of the handle is designed in such a way that other parts of the hand can assist governing the syringe. Examples of such ways of carrying out the invention are shown in fig. 2 and 3 Further the handle (6) should be designed so that it without essential change of position of the thumb/forefinger grip smoothly may disengage the tube body without influencing the sta! lie fixation to the needle body. When the tube body has been disengaged it may by the other hand of the operator be advanced into the lumen to a suitable position without changing the position of the needle body and with it the puncture needle position. The handle may be provided with an indication stick (8) that indicates the position of the tip of the puncture needle and may be of good assistance to less experienced operators. When the tube body (3) has been advanced to the desired position the puncture needle (4) is removed. To prevent blood flow through the tube body's rear end that has been tightened by the needle body the operator begins the removal by comprimating the skin area above the front end of the plastic tube with his/hers other hand until he/she has withdrawn the puncture needle, let go the handle with the punctures needle and placed the for this purpose intended stopper in the rear end of the tube body. Now the operator has both hands free to fix and flow test the tube body and separate the needle body (5) from the handle, which may be taken care of for cleaning, autoclaving and repacking. The handle grip (7) must, beside being ergono ically grip friendly, provide a comfortable but firm and stabile fixation to the needle body (5), suitably to the shield (9), as well as to the tube body (1), suitably to one of its wings (2). In this way a sure protection against unintended displacement of the needle tip relatively tube end is obtained. The needle tip is very sharp. At unsuitabel displacements of their mutual position the sharpened edges may cut loose plastic fragments from the tube tip. The fragments may in such a case get into the blood path. This may have incalculable consequences. When the handle grip has been mounted the operator may begin skin and wessel puncture after usual hygien preparations. The thumb/ forefinger grip in the proximity of the needle tip is ergonomically favorably and permits that the fine motorial movements of the hand come to their rights. The bigger muscle groups in underarm, overarm and trunk need normally not take part. The person who so wishes may get guidance at and after the wessel wall penetration by the indication stick (8), with which the handle may be provided. A handle with the qualities mentioned may be designed in several different ways. A couple of those are shown in fig. 2 and 3. Fig. 1 is showing two parallell projections in two against eac other perpendicular planes of a so called VENFLOtδ^-syringe which is suitable for use together with the handle according t the invention. VENFLON is a registered trade mark. Fig. 2 and 3 are showing examples of different preferred ways of carrying out invention. Fig. 2 shows a handle (6) consisting of two straight beams bot with an almost uniformly curved section and joined by a border (10) of a suitable polymer material with springy hinge functio and with a snap lock (11) in the back end. The beams are designed to enclose one of the wings of the tube body (2) and fix it with the aid of the snap lock (11). One of the beams preferably the one below is provided with a projecting squeeze arrangement (14) suitable to be placed over the shield (9) of the needle body (5) from the side or from above, at which the rear half of the squeeze arrangement first comes into contact with the back surface of the shield to prevent tendency for backward movement of the needle body, and the shield in the squeezed position becomes fixated not just in height and side positition but also in a defined direction essentially parallell to the squeeze arrangement (14). With preserved thumb/ orefinger grip the snap lock (11) shall allow opening with the little or ring finger at which the tube body's wing (2) is let free and the tube body may be advanced while the needle body still may be controlled and manipulated by the preserved thumb/ ore inger grip. Fig. 3 is showing a handle constructed as a hollow hexagonal rod with a function that reminds of a clothes nip. The hexagonal rod is with the exception of the piece (15) of the back wall (16) that serves as a springy hinge cut longitudinally through the front wall (17) and the mentioned back wall (16). The front part of the rod is cut obliquely to form shanks (18) of the clothes nip. The shank angles may preferably be larger at the front side (17) in order to give a somewhat larger opening of the rear front wall cut of the rod. The rear part of the front wall(17) of the rod has a pair of projecting jaws (13) preferably provided with one or more teet intended to firmly fix one of the wings of the tube body. The rear part of the rod has on one relatively the longitudinal cu upper wall a squeeze arrangement (14) suitable for the shield (9) of the needle body. The rear half of the squeeze arrangement is made to get into contact with the rear wall of the shield (9) to prevent tendency of the needle body to move backwards relatively to the tube body. The squeeze arrangement (14) is designed to give a firm fixation of the shield for desired needle direction as well as height and side. The design provides that one with unchanged thumb/forefinger grip firstly can securely direct skin and blood wessel punctur secondly may open the clothes nip to let the wing (2) of tube body wing free and with ease advance the tube body while the needle body is still fixed in the handle in unchanged position until the needle body may finally be withdrawn and the rear end of the tube bodys tightened with the stopper that until now has been sitting at the rear end of the needle body. The figure is showing the possibility of attaching the earlier mentioned indicating stick (8) to indicate the position of the needle tip as well as profiles with the object firstly to prevent the gloves of the operator from contaminating the plastic tube or the needle tip secondly to reninforce the shanks of the clothes nip. In the example a hexagonal rod has been chosen and this is one from the grip point of view preferred design. However, other polygonal or circular crosscuts are just as useful even if less grip friendly. A handle according to the invention may be designed as a single-use article. In that case there is nothing to prevent designing it as firmly bound to the needle body and temporarily, and smoothly disengageable, to the tube body. As the invention primarily is intended as expedient to operators that on account of deficient training otherwise may have difficulties to perform blood wessel punctures in the correct way designing as a separate attachment and multi-use article is preferred. Attaching a multi-use handle according to fig. 3 to a syringe is done as follows: The rear half of the squeeze arrangement (14) is brought into contact with the back side of the shield (9) and thus prevents backward movment of the puncture needle (4) relatively the plastic tube (3), Thereafter the jaws (13) that are to enclose one of the wings (2) of tube body are opened by pressing together the shanks (18), The wing is brought into the gap between the jaws (18) and fixed there by letting go of the pressure on the shanks (18). During the entire procedure is observed that the rear half of the squeeze arrangement rests against the back side of the shield. After the fixation of the tube body's wing the syringe is turned around an axis that is parallell to the axis of the syringe and runs through the joint of the wing (2) against the tube body until one reaches the desired grip position at the same time a the squeeze arrangement (14) is brought to its final position at the needle body (5) and fixed there. Mounting of a handle according fig. 2 and variants of the examplified handles is done correspondingly as far as applicable.

Claims: β Patent claims 1. Handle (6) with a grip arrangement (7) that permit thumb/forefinger placement at the side of and in the vicinity of the tip of the puncture needle for a syringe consisting of tube body (1) with a thin plastic tube (3) that surrounds a hollow puncture needle (4) fastened in a needle body (5) intended for blood wessel puncture and establishing blood path connection characterized in that the handle (6) is connecte to the tube body (1) as well as the needle body (5) before and during the puncture phase but may smoothly be disengaged from the tube body (1) which is moved forward when blood path contact has been erected and that the handle eventually is provided with an indikating stick (6) that indicates the position of the needle tip. 2. Arrangement according to claim 1 characterized in that the handle is of multi-use type and designed as a separate autoclaveable unit for rapid attachment to the tube body (1) and the needle body (5). 3. Arrangement according to claim 1 characterized in that th handle is of single-use type and eventually is integrated with the needle body (5). 4. Arrangement according to claim 1 characterized in that th handle is provided with an indicating stick to indicate the ti position of the needle. 5. Mode of mounting a multi-use handle according to claim 1 an 2 characterized in that the rear half of the squeeze arrangement (14) is brought and kept into contact with the bac side of the shield (9) until one of the wings (2) of the tube body (2) has been fixed between the jaws (13) thereafter the syringe is turned around an axis that is parallell to the syringe axis and runs through the joint of the wing (2) agains the tube body until one reaches desired grip position of the handle at the same time as the squeeze arrangement (14) is brought to its final position and in this way is fixed to the shield (9) of needle body.

Inventors: WIKLUND ERNST SIGURD GUSTAF FO, WIKLUND, ERNST, SIGURD, GUSTAF, FOLKE
Applicants: WIKLUND ERNST S G F, WIKLUND, ERNST, SIGURD, GUSTAF, FOLKE
Application year: 1994
Main classification: A61M5
IPC codes: A61M5, A61M25